Climate change is principally a major problem caused by the increase of human activities. These climatic changes have wide-range harmful effects. As of 1960 Nigeria had about 30 percent forest. Nigeria’s forests play an important role in protecting the country’s ecosystem.
On the average, Nigeria is said to be losing about 3.5 per cent of its forest annually, which is between 350,000 and 400,000 hectares of forestland. Also, a research conducted by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) revealed that between 2000 and 2005, the country lost 55.7 per cent of its primary forests, and the rate of forest change increased by 31.2 per cent to 3.12 per cent, per annum.
Meanwhile, as of 2021 Nigeria has lost 96 per cent of its forest due to deforestation, according to the Director-General, Nigerian Conservation Foundation (NCF), Muhtari Aminu-Kano. He said the country currently has only four per cent of its original forest cover.
Global Forest Watch also said between 2001 and 2021, Nigeria lost 1.14 million hectares of trees cover, as a result of the several activities like industrial agriculture and food, which take 80% of deforestation. Over 90 percent of the population of sub-Saharan Africa is dependent on wood from tree felling as a source of energy. 80% of Nigerians in rural areas depend on forests, which provide important opportunities for sustainable livelihoods and poverty eradication.
In an attempt for rural dwellers to meet the challenges of ensuring sustainable livelihood they tend to harm the environment through tree felling to use as sources of energy, heating and cooking. In Northern Nigeria, the greater percentage of rural dwellers are threatened by poverty which forces them to engage in deforestation for livelihoods.
The villagers around forests have been pushed by rapid population growth and the need for more income to over exploit fragile, and marginal grass land through overgrasing and tree felling for fuelwood and other domestic activities which result in desertification. Forty million Nigerians are engaged directly in fuelwood collection and charcoal production, according to a report by FAO).
Northern Nigerian states of Bauchi, Gombe, Borno, Yobe, Jigawa, Kano, Katsina, Sokoto, Zamfara and Kebbi, are facing serious threat of desertification. This is due to over exposure of the fragile environment, mostly through deforestation, overgrazing by livestock and occurrence of bush burning and drought.
The issue of tree felling as fuelwood in communities near forests is on the increase due to so many factors: many
fell trees for commercial or business purposes as they sell the woods to people that burn and extract charcoal while others take the woods to other communities or cities that are far from forests. Yet, some are doing that for their immediate need in their various houses for cooking or for heating during harmattan.
While growing in Burji town, neighbouring Falgore Game Reserve in Kano state, I knew of men whose main sources of income were firewood from the forest’s felled trees. To my knowledge, they had never engaged in farming or any other business aside selling firewood which majority of their customers use as source of energy in their homes.
My recent visit to the town and by extension a place I knew in the last two decades as part of the forest has since become a land for farming as over 90% of the trees have been felled to make way for farming. I recall how I normally see animals like monkeys, rabbits, etc roaming, but I was told by residents that in the last 10 years nobody has seen any of them again, no thanks to deforestation.
While the negative trend continues unabated in all Nigerian northern states neighbouring Niger Republic, Chad and Cameroon, land is affected by the rising temperature leading to the rapid southward expansion of the Sahara Desert. Farmlands and surrounding villages continue to become barren and getting swallowed up by advancing desertification, which is forcing many pastoralists to migrate in search of better weather.
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data shows that 89.8 million Nigerians fell below the poverty line at the start of 2023, with an additional four million making it 93.8 million in May 2023. This accounts for 43 percent of Nigeria’s 216 million people. This is among the reasons Nigeria remains one of the lowest consumer of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), popularly called cooking gas, in sub-Saharan Africa.
Despite the obvious advantages of LPG over other domestic fuel sources, only five per cent of Nigeria’s households use LPG. Over 80 percent of households in Nigeria still use firewood and kerosene, which have been identified as major sources of emission.
No surprise that as the price of LPG keeps increasing making poor and middle class Nigerians unable to afford, it is unarguably another factor pushing those not only in rural areas but middle class in towns and cities to embrace charcoal and firewood as alternative sources of energy.
Furthermore, the growing insecurity in most northern states has forced many out of farming which had in several decades become their source of income and livelihood, and for them to be able to survive tree felling near their villages to sell has now become the necessary option. The forest sector contributes about 2.5% to the Gross Domestic Product and provides employment for over 5 million people through the supply of timber and non-timber products in Nigeria.
Nigeria is ranked the second largest producer of charcoal in the world with 4.5 million tonnes after Brazil with 5.5 million tonnes, and first in Africa, with a combined 28% share of global production by FAO. Charcoal principally comes from tree felling in different forests in all parts of Nigeria.
Nigeria’s Guinea Savannah region is not spared either. Logging and over dependence on firewood for cooking have stripped a greater part of this area of its vegetation cover. The situation is similarly replicated in South-west Nigeria, where the forest around Oyo state has long been reduced to grassland. Despite these glaring revelations, however, Nigeria seems not prepared for the impact of climate change.
Although the country has been lucky not to have experienced major climate-change-induced natural disasters, the effect of climate change is evidenced by persistent drought in the northern part and major flooding and erosion along the nation’s coastline; another one was the disruptive weather pattern, as parts of the country have witnessed very hot weather conditions as a result of persistent drought. The Lake Chad has almost dried up, while there had been persistent desert encroachment in the north.
Worse still, the ordinary Nigerian in the street has no knowledge of climate change and its causes as they blame many other things whenever they experience draught and flooding due to the lack of orientation and enlightenment by authorities. These are what make the future of the country’s ecosystem even more bleak unless there’s an about-turn policy by the government and commitment to tackle the impending menace.
Bala, an Abuja-based freelance journalist, writes via [email protected]
